Free Republic

Police in Belgium have arrested a UK human rights activist for holding up a sign which challenged transgender ideology. Lois McLatchie Miller was arrested in Brussel for wearing a billboard which read: Children are never born in the wrong body.” She was detained alongside Canadian child protection advocate Chris Elston, who is known as “Billboard Chris”, after they were surrounded by an angry mob. In spite of the pair’s peaceful conduct, police arrested Ms McLatchie Miller and Billboard Chris rather than address the aggression of the crowd. They were taken to police stations, ordered to remove their clothes and detained...

According to new report, opposition to abortion is more ‘extreme’ than rape.A European abortion lobby is warning against “religious extremism” on the rise across the continent, singling out Catholicism and ignoring the threat posed to Europe by Islam. The 158-page report “The Next Wave: How Religious Extremism Is Reclaiming Power,” published by the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual & Reproductive Rights (EPF), faults “religious extremism” for the phenomenon of “accelerating financial expansion of movements working to dismantle decades of hard-won sexual and reproductive rights across Europe.”The EPF report derides the “anti-rights and religious extremist actors in Europe” working to oppose...

Ursula's new "European Media Freedom Act" permits the arrest of journalists if it is in the "public interest." ... The act also allows surveillance software to be deployed on devices used by media service providers, editorial staff, or related persons in the “public interest. Who decides the “public interest?” Sophie ... The new law also contains numerous provisions that call for action against alleged "disinformation." Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission President ... "national lists" are to be created listing the owners and addresses of media outlets, as stipulated in Article 6. Despite its intent to strengthen media freedom, critics...

If you have any doubt that the European Union is devolving into a soft totalitarian state, think again. I have been sounding the alarm bells about the developments in Europe for as long as I have been writing at Hot Air, and some of you may have thought me an alarmist engaged in hyperbole. I am alarmed, of course, but by real threats to freedom. The latest assault on freedom--not just in Europe, because the EU and Great Britain are using their criminal and regulatory powers to suppress speech in the US as well as other countries--comes with the breaking...

Last week, on June 26th, the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights (EPF) launched The Next Wave, a “report” that purports to expose the rise of so-called “anti-gender” and “anti-feminist” religious actors in Europe, whose goal is to “dismantle decades of hard-won sexual and reproductive rights across Europe.” Cloaked in the language of human rights, the document is, in truth, a politically charged dossier; reading more like a counter-terrorist threat assessment, and explicitly paints religious advocacy groups as part of an organized extremist threat that needs to be stopped at all costs. “A new alliance of religious extremists,...

Germany has been accused of violating basic Western values yet again, as a news editor in Germany faces a hefty fine and a seven month prison sentence for posting a meme mocking the government’s “hatred” of free speech. The Bamberg district court in Bavaria sentenced Deutschland-Kurier editor David Bendels this week to seven months in prison on probation and a fine of nearly sixty per cent of his annual income, or 210 ‘daily rates’, for posting an image on social media of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding an altered sign. The common meme tactic of changing the words on signs...

European Union regulators are preparing to hit Elon Musk's X platform with a huge fine which could surpass $1billion for breaking disinformation laws, insiders have reportedly revealed. The move would likely to ratchet up tensions between the EU and United States, with tech billionaire Musk a close adviser to President Trump. The social media platform could also face forced product changes for failing to abide by the landmark law to combat illicit content and disinformation, sources told the New York Times. The penalties are expected to be announced this summer, the sources said, and will be the first to be...

After all the build-up, the transatlantic trade war has truly begun. US tariffs on steel are reciprocated with EU tariffs on jeans and Harley Davidsons. When announcing the EU tariffs president Ursula von der Leyen was clear that she is open to dialogue with the Americans to deescalate the trade conflict. We have seen in his modus operandi that this is how Donald Trump likes to operate. Bold statements and excessive tariffs to extort trading partners and get a better deal. He has been doing it to Mexico, Canada and Ukraine, and will do so to Europe. However, in exchange...

During what was supposed to be a cordial meeting, followed by a lunch and a joint press conference between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fireworks erupted when Vice President JD Vance urged diplomacy and called Zelenskyy out for “trying to litigate this in front of the American media” and pointed out that he is “going around forcing conscripts to the frontlines because [he] has manpower problems.” After making a veiled threat to the United States, claiming we don’t “feel it” now because we have a “nice ocean” around us but “will feel it in the future,” President Trump inserted himself...

...CEO and Co-Founder of the Christian prayer app Hallow, took to X (formerly Twitter)...announcing that the European Union (EU) would no longer allow its citizens access to the app. Jones explained that “over-regulation” targeting all religious apps would make it impossible for Hallow to be available in the EU. This news comes shortly after China removed Hallow from its app store in July 2024. In his post, Jones expressed his heartbreak over the news as Hallow was in the works of expanding its content to Polish, French, Italian, and German audiences. Since its launch in December 2018, Hallow has seen...

Freedom of speech is a virus! And censorship is a vaccine!" Ursula von der Leyen called for “vaccinating” society against uncomfortable information .

The Hague (AP) -- The International Criminal Court on Friday called on its member states to stand up against sanctions imposed by US President Donald Trump, saying that the move was an attempt to “harm its independent and impartial judicial work”. And the embattled court got plenty of support from traditional US allies in Europe who stood up against the Trump measure. “Sanctioning the ICC threatens the court’s independence and undermines the international criminal justice system as a whole,” said European Council President António Costa, who heads the summits of the European Union’s 27 leaders. It was the toughest direct...

A House committee revealed Friday that the Pentagon, other US agencies and the European Union — in addition to the State Department — have funded a for-profit “fact-checking” firm accused of suppressing The Post. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) wrote a letter to the firm, NewsGuard, demanding more details about the public-private collaboration that led last year to the State Department being sued by conservative outlets that were labeled more “risky” than their liberal counterparts..... The Oversight panel in June opened its investigation into NewsGuard’s apparent participation in a government-funded “censorship campaign” to allegedly discredit and even demonetize...

Former President Donald J. Trump has returned to X (formerly Twitter) with a string of posts made just after noon on Monday. The 2024 Republican presidential nominee had largely been absent from the social platform since the then-sitting President’s account was suspended on January 8, 2021, by the company’s former ownership under Jack Dorsey.Since his suspension over three years ago, the former Republican President founded his own social media company, Truth Social, which went public earlier this year—earning Trump billions. Over the past two years, an exclusivity agreement with Truth Social had largely kept Trump from other social media platforms....

The EU warns Elon Musk about tonight’s Donald Trump livestream on X. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton says the EU will watch for “spillovers” that violate the Digital Services Act, such as “content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political - or societal - events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections.”

Political violence against the right is raging, but the left appears to tacitly — and sometimes openly — endorse it... On Wednesday, the Patriots for Europe Group in the European Parliament initiated a plenary debate and a resolution condemning political violence, including the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump, the current presidential candidate, but the majority of MEPs voted against it, Kinga Gál, the group’s first vice-president, said in Strasbourg. At her press conference, Kinga Gál criticized the EU parliament for doing virtually nothing to combat the political violence that has already been rife in Europe. She cited...

I have been waiting for quite a while to see the war between Elon Musk and the European Union break out into the open. Ever since Elon bought Twitter the Establishment has been panicked by their loss of control over the Narrative™, and they have been making noises about pushing Twitter/X out of Europe or imposing fines if Musk doesn't shut down free speech on his platform. The Elite have been waging an open financial war on the platform, driving advertisers away and trying (and failing) to come up with competitors that will drive Twitter/X out of the market. The...

[Catholic Caucus] Belgian court rules against 2 Catholic archbishops for refusing woman to enter training for diaconateCardinal Jozef De Kesel and Archbishop Luc Terlinden have both been ordered to pay more than $1,000 in damages for having ‘discriminated’ against a female pastoral worker by refusing her requests to enroll in a training course for future deacons.A district court in Belgium has ruled that two Catholic archbishops must pay damages of more than $1,000 each for refusing to allow a woman to enter training for the diaconate.In a bizarre case, a district court in Mechelen ruled against Cardinal Jozef De Kesel...

A court in Switzerland sentenced a writer and commentator to 60 days in jail for calling a journalist a “fat lesbian,” and the decision is being lauded by LGBTQ+ groups. On Monday, French-Swiss polemicist Alain Bonnet, who goes by Alain Soral, was sentenced by the Lausanne court for the crimes of defamation, discrimination and incitement to hatred after he criticized Catherine Macherel, a journalist for Swiss newspapers Tribune de Geneve and 24 Heures, in a Facebook video two years ago. “This court decision is an important moment for justice and rights of LGBTQI people in Switzerland,” said Murial Waeger, co-director...

Germany will arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country amid allegations of war crimes by the International Criminal Court, a spokesperson has confirmed. Steffen Hebestreit, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, confirmed on Wednesday the country would 'abide by the law' and arrest the under-fire Israeli leader should he visit the EU nation. This comes after British prosecutor Karim Khan announced on Monday that he is seeking warrants for Netanyahu, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three Hamas terror chiefs including Yahya Sinwar, the ruler in Gaza who masterminded October 7.